How One Fateful Decision Led the Dramatically Trained Keegan-Michael Key on a ‘19-Year Detour’ Into Comedy
Imagine no Key & Peele, which means no Liam Neesons or Obama Anger Translator. Beca’s Boss would have been entirely different in Pitch Perfect 2. Jordan Peele may have still co-written Keanu, but who’s to say the film would have been made without his partner in cat-seeking crime? And there’s no way that Gustav, the mutton-chopped German adviser to James Franco in the new comedy Why Him? would have been such the scene stealer.
All because Keegan-Michael Key would have been in Ashland, Oregon.
The ubiquitous comedic actor points to one decision in his life — “the first really significant fork in the road, professionally,” he explained to Yahoo Movies at Beverly Hills hotel while promoting Why Him? — that altered the entire course of his career.
Related: How James Franco Got ‘Walter Whited’ by Bryan Cranston in ‘Why Him?’
It was the summer of 1996 and Key, 25 at the time, was fresh out of Penn State where he’d earned an M.F.A. in theater. He had performed some improv here and there, mostly during undergrad at the University of Detroit, but he considered himself a Serious Dramatic Actor. And he had a choice between two options. One was to head to Champaign-Urbana to perform at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. “I thought, if I do that, then that’s the course I’m going to be on,” Key said. “I’ll start trying to work my way up the ranks. In that world, you want to make it to Ashland, Oregon. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is the top of the ladder.”
The other option was to go back to his hometown of Detroit and act in an independent film called Get the Hell Out of Hamtown written by a couple of his friends. Key ultimately chose the latter — not the ladder — for many reasons, he said, but mostly for the comfort of being back in the environment he knew.
What he didn’t know is that the role in Hamtown (named for the Detroit-adjacent, blue-collar city of Hamtramck) would lead him on “this glorious 19-year detour into comedy.” Although his role in Hamtown was dramatic, a few cast mates were members of the Second City Detroit improv troupe, and encouraged him to audition. “Much to my chagrin,” Key remembered. ” I was like, ‘What are you talking about? I’m a dramatic actor. I don’t do sketch comedy. How dare you, how dare you, sir?!‘”
Key, of course, got in, and the transformation took root. “Second City was like me getting a second master’s degree. I got to learn comedy there. Timing, how to write jokes, what the anatomy of a joke is, what the anatomy of a scenario is. It was one of the most impressionable times, and one of the greatest learning times in my life.”
After four years and 11 revues at Second City Detroit, Key was drafted into improv’s big leagues: Second City ETC in Chicago. His drive for comedy only intensified. “Anyone who goes to Second City Chicago is in some way, shape, or form in the back of their head thinking, ‘SNL might call. SNL might call.’ If they say that they don’t think about that, I think it’s a little disingenuous. We’re all there to explore improvisation, but it wouldn’t be bad to be on SNL.”
That, of course, sounds very much like the plot of Don’t Think Twice, Mike Birbiglia’s “drama about comedy” and one of five films Key appeared in this year. “That was a very autobiographical film for me,” Key admitted.
Saturday Night Live didn’t call, but MADtv did, even though the Fox sketch series had sent talent scouts to SCETC to look for female performers. It was the break Key needed. He would spend six seasons on MADtv and also form another career-changing relationship, this time with co-star Peele. Fox had initially planned to test the actors against one another but they displayed such an effortless chemistry the network had no choice but to keep both.
Key’s monster year in ’16 is a direct extension of his climb up the sketch ladder in Second City and then on MADtv and Comedy Central’s Key & Peele. First there was his action-comedy Keanu with Peele and the year’s cutest gangta kitty; then voice roles in high-flying animated kiddie flicks Angry Birds and Storks; the aforementioned indie hit Don’t Think Twice, and now Why Him?, a Meet the Parents-esque laugher that pits Franco’s brash billionaire against the father (Bryan Cranston) of his new girlfriend (Zooey Deutch).
Related: Watch Key, Peele, and the Cast of ‘Keanu’ Rate the Internet’s Cutest Kittens
These are all comedic roles, but the actor insists he’s not naturally funny. “I guess that can be true depending on the person, but for me it’s the craft of it. People are surprised to hear I started in drama. They say, ‘Oh, you have the facility for this.’ But I say, ‘No, I think that’s my training.'”
As Key puts it, “All comedy is is dramatic elements with a little bit of heightening… The character doesn’t know they’re in a comedy, the same way a character doesn’t know they’re in a drama.”
From the sounds of it, Key will soon be a man who knows he’s a character — or characters — in a drama. “Things are changing as we speak,” he says about his want to return to more serious work. ” What’s exciting is there are quite a few projects that I’m not at liberty to talk about that are not comedies. And I’m thrilled. And as I move forward, I think we’re turning the ship the right way.” Maybe he’ll even end up in Astoria, Oregon.
Why Him? opens Friday. Watch the trailer:
